Derrick Rose and the MVP

As the Bulls keep winning — despite the fact that Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah have played together only nine times this season — the “Derrick Rose for MVP” talk keeps heating up.

Here’s a recent samping from around the Web.

Charles Barkley on “The Waddle & Silvy Show” on ESPN 1000 (via ESPNChicago): “I think Derrick has surpassed Deron Williams as the best point guard in the NBA, and I think right now he has to be the front-runner for MVP. He’s been fantastic, and I think when you look at the Eastern Conference, and I’ve said it all along, the Chicago Bulls to me are the most dangerousteam if they get everybody healthy. Derrick Rose to me has been a tremendous leader. He’s missed his second and third best players the majority of the season, and they have the third-best record in the Eastern Conference. That’s pretty remarkable.”

Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau (via ESPNChicago): “If you had to make [the pick] right now, what he’s done for our team, I can’t imagine anyone doing any more. But again, I think the big thing is how he’s lifted our team.”

ESPN’s Rick Reilly: “Your MVP vote might be Dwyane Wade or LeBron James in Miami, but you’d be wrong. They have each other. It might be for the wizard Rondo in Boston, but he’s only a disher, not a scorer. It might be for Amare Stoudemire of the New York Knicks, but if he’s so valuable, why do they lose as often as they win? Rose has the Bulls in the hunt for the No. 1 seed in the East even though they lost their two trees — Joakim Noah (21 games) and Carlos Boozer (18) — for much of the first half. The pick is Rose for all the right reasons.

Steve Aschburner of NBA.com: “The load that Rose is carrying for Chicago rarely has been more evident than it was during TNT’s broadcast Thursday. Rose scored 26 points against the Mavericks, facing and eventually thwarting a variety of defensive tactics; the other four Bulls starters scored 26 points while Dallas was fixated on their point guard. Rose shot six free throws to his fellow starters’ two, had nine assists to their three and matched their two blocks. … Separating oneself from one’s supporting cast while winning at a high frequency is the surest way to earn consideration for the Maurice Podoloff trophy. And with Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer sidelined by injuries, Rose surely has done that at United Center, where the ‘M-V-P!’ chants start when their guy is at the foul line ring a little more true than when, oh, the folks in Oakland do it for Monta Ellis.”

Bryan Crawford of SLAM: “While, critics of Rose went into a collective, ‘This guy must be crazy!’ and ‘Who does he think he is?’ stance once his comments hit the mainstream media, SLAM devoted a feature article and a cover to his statement in spite of people methodically picking Rose apart and rattling off all the reasons why the third year PG supposedly had no chance at winning the award: He can’t shoot. His assists are low. He can’t run a team. He’s not a true PG. He can’t create for others. He’s not a leader. He’s Allen Iverson or Steve Francis 2.0. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Paul are all better than him. But that was in September. Four months later it can no longer be denied that Rose has a real shot at being named the best player in the NBA at season’s end as long as he stays healthy and the Bulls continue to play well and keep racking up the W’s. While the MVP award in and of itself is nothing more than a popularity contest, individual and team success certainly factor into the equation and Derrick Rose is certainly experiencing both.”

Colin Hettinger of Gapers Block: “Rose has the chance to become what LeBron never could, fulfilling the “Local Boy Makes Good” headline that Cleveland was dying to write for seven years. What’s more, he seems to want to be the local hero; he’s proud to bring Chicago back to the top of the NBA. No doubt the Bulls’ front office deserves credit for giving him the pieces needed in the form of Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, but what makes this season so spectacular is that despite dozens of lost games among both players this year due to injury, Rose hasn’t whined, given up or buckled. Despite those injuries, Chicago is 30-14, a close third in the Eastern Conference behind Boston and Miami, heading into tonight’s home game against the Bucks. And Rose has carried more of a burden than the stars from those two contenders. That sounds like an MVP to me.”

Brian Rogers of te NEIU Independent: “Will he win the MVP this season? He’s close to being the number one player in the NBA. He is the Bulls franchise and the team’s most valuable player, but we have yet to see his best game. He is a young player, and he is on the threshold of super-stardom. With the right development and talent surrounding him, he will be the league MVP before long. Since Jordan’s retirement, the city of Chicago has waited for another superstar caliber player to come along, someone to root for, and someone to spark our hopes for another championship run. That player has arrived in Derrick Rose.”

Steven Elonich of Bleacher Report: “The symbolic No. 1 knows how to take over a game when his teammates are not up to par, including his most recent game against the Michael Jordan-owned Charlotte Bobcats. Rose dropped 33 points while also adding five rebounds and four assists, while all other four starters combined to contribute 28. Only two other Bulls even managed double-digit points, with Luol Deng scoring 10 and Ronnie Brewer with 12. The Bulls lost 83-82, but would it have even been close without Rose’s leadership? Derrick Rose has obviously carried his team through injuries, poor play and tough situations. His humble leadership ability is a rare trait that is coveted by many, and attained by few. His qualifications for being the MVP are all there, but it’s going to take a few more people to open their eyes for it to happen. Does any other team depend on a single player more than the Bulls do Rose? That’s what the term, Most Valuable Player is all about, right?”

And now a dissenting voice.

Tom Ziller of SBNation: “Derrick Rose, former No. 1 pick and superlative point guard for the thriving Chicago Bulls, is becoming an incredibly popular midseason MVP pick. Much of this is based on the story of Rose’s rise coinciding with that of his team; no serious investigation of the numbers suggests Rose belongs among the top five MVP contenders this season. He’s been phenomenal, no doubt. But plenty of great players having phenomenal seasons don’t win the MVP. Like Kevin Durant last season.”

The following post is what Ziller meant by “serious investigation of the numbers.”

Rohan Cruyff of SBNation: “Rose has been instrumental to Chicago’s success, but LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have used just as many possessions to even better effect. If you’re not a fan of them teaming up, Kevin Durant’s right there with them (and above Rose). Nobody in the league has been as closely linked to his team’s offensive success as Kobe Bryant, and Dirk Nowitzki sacrifices mere percentage points of usage while producing almost 10 points more per 100 possessions (about equal to the offensive disparity between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat). Rose hasn’t even entirely distinguished himself from another high FGA point guard, Russell Westbrook. And that’s to make no mention of the off-chart trio of Paul, Howard, and Deron Williams.”

I wonder if Ziller and Cruyff are going to lead a campaign to have Kobe Bryant’s 2008 MVP award retracted because he didn’t lead the league in PER, Win Shares or any other efficiency stats (in most cases, he wasn’t even in the top five). But since they’re so concerned about numbers…

Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference: “In the absence of a runaway choice, there’s an ever-growing push among traditional media members in favor of Derrick Rose’s MVP candidacy — and to be totally honest, the advanced boxscore-based stats don’t see it. Rose is having a tremendous season, without a doubt, but he’s currently 9th in Win Shares, 17th in WS per 48 minutes, 14th in Player Efficiency Rating, and 14th in Statistical +/-… Not exactly the most impressive MVP resume from the stathead’s perspective. However, there is one advanced metric that does validate the love for Rose: Adjusted Plus/Minus (via BasketballValue.com). Sure, the standard errors are huge, and Mike Dunleavy Jr. shows up as the 2nd-best player behind Rose (yikes!). But at least there is some numerical evidence that Rose is making Chicago better in ways that aren’t being detected in his box score numbers.”

Handing out the MVP is tricky business. There never has — and probably never will be — any clear-cut criteria for what makes a player The Most Valuable. Is it stats? Results? A combination of both? There’s always a dividing line between sentiment and statistics. Rose is well-liked and displaying superstar qualities. However, he’s taking hits from the statheads because he isn’t as efficient as other MVP candidates.

Rose has meant everything to the Bulls this season. People wonder where Chicago would even be without him. Of course, subtract a superstar from a team and that team is usually in trouble. Look at the poor Cavaliers. And the Heat had some recent struggles when LeBron James sat out. The Mavericks nearly crumbled when Dirk Nowitzki was sitting out. And the Bulls would likely do the same if Rose missed any significant time. (The Lakers seemed to do okay without Kobe last season…but that’s another story.)

Is Rose the MVP? Win or lose, is he even deserving of consideration? There are no right or wrong answers to those questions. Pick a side. Pick a stat. Whatever. In the end, all that matters is that the Bulls are winning and Rose is their MVP.

33 Responses to Derrick Rose and the MVP

hahaha what a timely post…. I bet all those guys who are against DRose being the MVP are stat-haters who think there is more to the game, yet when it comes time to put a player down who isn’t their favorite, stats become the end-all solution.

If Rose stays healthy, the Bulls keep winning and Rose keeps puting up great numbers he will be on the short list of MVP canidates. He has to be. Perversely, the thing that would validate his MVPness is something that no Bulls fan wants to see. Rose goes down due to injury for a bit. If he goes down for a week or two after Noah comes back and the Bulls completely collapse it would do a lot to validate him as MVP.
I would rather see him stay healthy, miss the MVP and make a deep playoff run.

I had an extensive discussion/argument on another well-known Bulls blog about that very metric, and one useful point to come out of it was that anything less than two year adjusted +/- numbers are HIGHLY suspect.

@Luke, I don’t think anyone discounted the use of stats as PART of what goes into analyzing a players value on the court. What was refuted was the notion that stats and/or calculations are the biggest part of analyzing a players all around value to a team. I know many of the posters at that other well known blog would swear that stats and/or calculations are the only way to determine a players value(which is why I no longer go to that site). I don’t think anyone here said that calculations are not part of the evaluation process. We are merely pointing out that there is much more to basketball than numbers and statistical analysis. Especially when looking at a players value to the success of his team. A drive and kick to a wide open player is no less of a good play by the passer if the shooter misses the shot. That is just one of many examples. Referees give superstars preferential treatment when it comes to getting to the line. Or if a ref makes a bad call and the player gets hit with a turnover due to the refs mistake. It is hard for statistics to take into account these types of things that play a big role in the NBA game. Again, I believe stats are a part of player analysis when determining his value to the team. I am just pointing out that actually watching the games and seeing what a player does night in and night out has just as much importance to determining a players value as numbers and statistics alone.

Statistics obviously NEVER tell the whole story, which is why it is so important to be eclectic in assessments of players (in a B-ball context).

Many people are attracted to numerical expressions of ability because they are convenient substitutes for serious, and more complicated thought. But as any serious analysis of individual metrics would suggest, even seemingly (or potentially) useful stats can be misleading.

For the record, I would have had LeBron and CP3 ahead of Kobe on my 2008 ballot. I had LeBron as No. 1 on my NBA Top 50 list a few months after the season ended: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2008/10/16/nba-top-50-lebron-james-no-1/ Kobe was No. 3, behind CP3. So while I’m not actively trying to have Kobe’s MVP revoked, I don’t think Kobe deserved it over LeBron that season.

Derrick Rose is at his best in big games when he is playing against other big stars. The last couple games against elite opponents have been great examples. He took Boston to the woodshed. When D-Wade came to town Rose out dueled him. He may not have the best numbers but he just wants to win. If he misses 20 shots and wins hes content. If he doesnt shoot and wins hes content. Rose does not pad his stats against bad teams. Also his shooting percentage is low for an MVP. But how many times does he draw 3 or 4 defensive players, put up a shot, miss, and his teammates get an easy rebound and bucket. Watch a game stat people. Analyze that part of his game. His team (which is what he cares about) scores on a large percentage of his missed shots. This is not only with Boozer and Noah, who are great rebounders, but also old man Kurt Thomas gets these easy put backs. Maybe Rose is not the MVP but if he isn’t, who is?

Tony! Are you suggesting the linked pieces are not “serious and complicated thought”?

Or is your response to any use of stats simply stating ‘stats don’t say everything’, which is apparently not “obvious” enough to the point where you feel the need to stop saying it.

Instead of a pointless knee-jerk reaction to statistics (honestly, the B-R piece explicitly mentions Dunleavy and yet you still feel the need to single that out a reason for complete dismissal?) I’m curious as to your actual thoughts on Rose as MVP. Kidding, you write like a “serious and complicated” jerk so I don’t really want to read it.

It seems to be the parallel argument alongside the one actually trying to determine if Rose is the league’s best player: is he the most MVP-y ‘story’ for MVP? So far Rose is at the top, unless New Orleans gets flooded again.

Well put, as always — the statheads will freak out as always, and that’s not to say they don’t have a point. Things like PER, win shares, etc. do say a lot about an individual player. What they don’t show is the context in which that player plays — the point about the Heat without LeBron and the Mavs without Dirk were key. The Bulls without Rose aren’t in the playoff conversation. Period. The number of times he’s stepped up his game in critical moments and taken over when the Bulls didn’t have a legit 2 option — and this without Joakim and Booz for pretty much the entire season, together at least — is remarkable. Stats can say what they want, but in key moments Rose elevates his game, and without him the Bulls would be in bad shape. The Bobcats game is telling, but I think back to that road OT win in Phoenix, where it was big shot after big shot. D-Rose may or may not be the “best player” in the league, but as far as most valuable, I think he’s a clear answer. The only other player this year whose absence would wreck his team is Howard. If Howard won over Rose, I wouldn’t complain, his game has been beast all year, but what D-Rose has done to put the Bulls where they are has been incredible. It’s been a long time since I’ve marked Bulls games on my calendar as something I cannot miss, but D-Rose has done that this year.

I thought Kobe’s ’08 MVP was discussed by Hollinger as a make-up for the ’07 season and a life-time award. As somebody in most people’s top 10 of all time, people wanted to give him at least 1 MVP while he was at his peak. Can anybody verify if Kobe’s MVP numbers are a statistical outlier compared to other MVP years?

I don’t think anyone on this blog is going to disagree that other players are also putting up equally or more impressive numbers than Derrick Rose. His numbers are important, but its not what sets him apart. Its the fact that he’s been doing it with all the injuries the Bulls have been forced to endure. Because of this he has no one to play off of, no one to distract opposing defenses, and no one to give him a chance to rest. Deng is really the only other consistently heathy offensive player (Think about the surprise of that statement given what he’s been through…) on this team that is remotely capable of creating shots, but he’s nowhere near good enough to really count as the number two option on a contender.

How about the other players on Cruyff’s graph? Dirk? He gets to play with Kidd, Durant and Westbrook, obvious. Wade, Lebron, and Bosh? Even more obvious. Martin might deserve to be in the conversation if his team was winning, but they aren’t. Deron Williams in incredible, but he gets to play off Millsap all season. Eventually when Noah (so Rose can actually attack the open floor and not have to worry about rebounding thus increasing his effieciency) and Boozer (so he doesn’t have to deal with five guys constantly zeroing in on him) get heathy maybe this argument doesn’t hold up. Until then this sets him apart from the pack.

In fact of the players everyone is talking about only CP3 is doing the same thing Rose is. Leading an otherwise average (or below average) team to contender status. Does he deserve it more than Rose? Maybe, I might prefer Rose but I wouldn’t be upset if CP3 got it ahead of him. Likewise I don’t think CP3 fans can really be that upset if DRose ends up winning it. What’s ridiculous is people saying he’s not even a top 5 candidate based upon a few stats that ignore the fundamental elements that set him apart.

Sorry I forgot Amare. He’s also doing it all alone, but his team is barely .500 and according to your stats he’s even less effective than Rose. So I don’t see how someone can place him ahead of Rose without offering a whole new perspective to the debate.

henery abbott of true hoop blog on espn, also has a Anti Rose MVP article. all the “anti” rose guys obvoiously dont watch the games to see the WILL and DRIVE he puts into his team nightly. Basketball isnt just about stats.

Your consistent unwillingness (or should I say inability?) to argue the substance of my posts suggests that serious analysis may well be a struggle for you. But to help you along a bit, I’ll parse out my point more finely.

There are many people who follow the NBA who rely primarily on one or two stats as the foundation for their assertions. That group includes many fans, as well as writers (some very well-known). The temptation to over-rely on stats, especially when there isn’t a true understanding of their possible limitations or flaws, can lead to flawed conclusions, even if those conclusions seem obviously correct to some (or many).

So, to use an example that you know well, when one of your commenters posted yet another rant about Bogans, he pointed to +/- as obvious proof that you, he, and most Bulls fans are smart, and that Thibs is a fool with regards to that issue.

I then started a long discussion about the value and accuracy of +/- when used in that context. That discussion, which, by the way, you petulantly complained about, led to a very useful parsing of the stat, the gist of which was that 2 year adjusted +/- is vastly more reliable than one year adjusted. In other words, plucking an adjusted +/- to buttress (or make) an argument about the quality or value of an individual player is treacherous, while 2 year adjusted numbers are much more reliable.

So, anyone who followed that thread to its conclusion could have learned something quite valuable (I certainly did).

What I stated in my above post was a glancing reference to that example. I said nothing about the linked articles, nor their authors, but rather made a broad point. And your interpretation of that point, apparently through the distorted lens of your anger, is far too narrow. Yes, of course ‘everyone’ knows that stats don’t tell the whole story – even Hollinger. But I am, and have been, pushing back at a common dynamic which appears not only in observing and analyzing NBA basketball, but many other disciplines. That is the tendency of people to over-rely on simplistic numerical representations. That over-reliance, something that I also frequently encounter in the Thoroughbred racing business, is dangerous, as it can easily lead to mistaken interpretations. It also happens to often be a substitute for more serious, complicated analysis. The numbers are easy to use, and are a short-cut.

That is my primary motivation for participating on threads in which such dangers are apparent, in an effort to push readers to dig more deeply.

Finally, feel free to keep slinging the dirt. I’m still waiting for you to produce one – just one – serious argument to break up the serial vitriol.

Stats are extremely important in evaluating players. You just have to understand the context of them. You still have to really watch the games be able to assign true meaning to the stats. For example, you can have a player like Melo who hurts his team with poor shooting efficiency because he has several other efficient scorers on the team and he does a poor job of creating shots for them (averages under 3 assists per game). Rose on the other hand hasn’t had many efficient scorers next to him (partially due to injuries) and still manages to do a great job of facilitating the offense.

that is to say, by consistently citing the need for nuance and comprehension you’re showing a lack of it yourself in evaluating this ‘common dynamic’. It actually makes more sense to specifically cite who you think is doing this, especially since the original post did a good job to provide many examples to comment on.

Per usual, it’d be a much better discussion if you could bring something to the table instead of striving to take things off (and what’s ‘obvious’, at that). For example, I see a value in showing some lineup +/- stats for when Bogans starts. You think it’s absolutely worthless, fine. Your counterargument of ‘cuz Thibs sez so’ is less convincing, but at least it’s something. I haven’t seen much more.

But I didn’t want to get into your game of making the comment be about you instead of the topic, and instead went for the quick attack. sorry.

I really can’t stand the acronym, but I’ll make an exception this one time – LOL!

In reverse order…

“I didn’t want to get into your game of making the comment be about you instead of the topic”

Let me get this straight: My “game” is to comment on people, rather than the topic? On its own, the assertion would be ridiculous, but coming from you, it’s laughably hypocritical.

“…it’d be a much better discussion if you could bring something to the table instead of striving to take things off”

So, in your view critical comments somehow lack value? In my world, probing criticism is an essential part of the learning process, and offering and receiving constructive criticism is often the most effective route to deeper understanding.

“…by consistently citing the need for nuance and comprehension you’re showing a lack of it yourself”

Can’t say that I understand your point here, unless you are yearning for me to delve into the Rose MVP question more deeply. Somehow I doubt that, though.

“I see a value in showing some lineup +/- stats for when Bogans starts. You think it’s absolutely worthless…”

No, that a straw man argument. I have never said, nor implied as much. Using anything less than 2 year adjusted +/- as a confirmation of one’s beliefs about Bogans (or any other player) is a mistake, however.

I agree, I should’ve just let Tony be a raging gasbag and not feel the need to mock it, it’s not my blog. Amazing how he finds controversy wherever he posts, when he’s so invariably substantive!

Anyway, Tony, I don’t think it was a strawman to say you found that use of +/- useless when in the very next phrase say it is a ‘mistake’ unless it’s adjusted and over 2 years.

When talking about players on the same team, and over the course of 40 games, I still say it had merit. And it’s coupled with the knowledge that Bogans provides no box-score production himself. I certainly didn’t see it as a magic bullet, but I liked it (and found it smart!) as trying to look deeper to find answers instead of merely suggesting that we as a common dynamic should do so.

@Bullsblogger, go back to BaB, your self-inflated condension and personal attacks are not needed on this blog. While I do not always agree with Tony C., he seldom makes personal attacks on other commentors unless he has been attacked.

Anyone who places statistical significance on a sample as short as a portion of a season, unless used as a point of reference, lacks credibility as a statistian.

A review of Bogans career stats, looking at monthly splits, shows that he is a streak shooter. He does things defensively that do not show up in the stats sheet like causing loose balls, blocking out, and slowing down fast breaks. While I have been critical in the past of Bogans starting, when I walk in Thibs shoes and my club is 31-14 with Bogans as the starter why change? Bogans 3-pt shooting splits for this season (32.0%): Oct = 16.7%, Nov = 28.6%, Dec = 33.3%, Jan = 40.0%. When Bogans gets his playing time is not as important as who is on the court at crunch time.

As far as the validity of Rose being in the discussion for MVP, he is clearly the Bulls MVP, the Bulls are currenly one of the top teams in the NBA, so Rose should be considered for MVP. Whether he gets the award, he deserves to be in the discussion. Intangables are things that can not be measured statistically, but contribute to the success of the team. Rose provides leadership, drive and confidence to the rest of his team mates, that is part of his credentials for MVP.

I’m a Celtics fan stopping by to say if I had an MVP vote, Derrick Rose would be getting it. If you are looking for the most “valuable” player i don’t think there’s a whole lot of question who that is in the league, considering the injuries to the Bulls so far, and their record.

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